The United States is close to deciding on whether to label the Pakistan-based Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist group, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday amid calls for a tougher stance on militants accused of series of high-profile attacks. “We are in the final, formal review that has to be undertaken to make a government-wide decision to designate the network as a foreign terrorist organisation,” Clinton told reporters in an appearance with Egypt’s visiting foreign minister. [caption id=“attachment_74849” align=“alignright” width=“380” caption=“The State Department is under heavy Congressional pressure to name the Haqqani network a terrorist outfit. AFP”] [/caption] Clinton, noting that the United States had already placed a number of individual leaders of the Haqqani network on its terrorism blacklist, said the United States would work with Pakistan to put pressure on such groups. “We’re going to continue to struggle against terrorism and in particular against those who have taken up safe havens inside Pakistan, and we’re going to continue to work with our Pakistani counterparts to try and root them out,” she said. What it will do A move to name the Haqqanis as a terrorist group would bar US citizens from providing support to the group and freeze any assets it might have in the United States – a symbolic step that might relieve some of the mounting US political pressure to take a harder line with Pakistan. The Haqqani network has been in the spotlight after US officials accused it of mounting this month’s attack on the US embassy in Kabul with the support of Pakistan’s powerful military spy agency. The United States has long pressed its ally Pakistan to pursue the Haqqani network, one of the most lethal Taliban-allied Afghan groups fighting Western forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan denies it supports the Haqqanis and says its army is too stretched battling its own Taliban insurgency to go after the network, which has an estimated 10,000-15,000 fighters. The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, last week urged Clinton to put the Haqqani network on the terrorism blacklist, saying there was no question it met the standard for inclusion. Some analysts have speculated that the State Department has not yet taken that formal step in hopes the Haqqanis could be reconciled as part of Afghan peace talks between the government and insurgents. Any such talks now seem unlikely at best. The Haqqani network, based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal area, is named after aging leader Jalaluddin Haqqani. The elder Haqqani was among the mujahideen leaders that fought Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and his group received CIA backing then. Clinton noted she raised the issue in a 3-1/2 hour meeting last week with Pakistan’s foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar, underscoring that the Haqqanis represented a threat not only to US interests but also to Pakistan and Afghanistan. “The United States and Pakistan have vital strategic interests that converge in the fight against terrorism,” Clinton said, noting what she said were “tangible results” of cooperation on anti-terrorism including Pakistan’s recent capture of a senior al Qaeda operative. “I have no argument with anyone who says this is a very difficult and complex relationship, because it is,” Clinton said. “But I also believe strongly that we have to work together despite those difficulties.” Lisa Curtis, a former CIA analyst and now a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation policy group in Washington, told Bloomberg that there would be “increasing congressional pressure” on the State Department to list the Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist organisation. “If we know that the Haqqani network is behind these major attacks on US interests and we fail to confront them, that is a signal of weakness and it simply invites more attacks,” she said. Watch a slideshow of US and Pakistan’s uneasy relationship: [fpgallery id=250] Next stop: Pakistan Analysts reason that if the US names the Haqqani network as a terrorist organisation, it might lead to demands that Pakistan be declared a state sponsor of terrorism. For US policymakers, that would risk any lingering cooperating that Pakistan provides in dealing with Al Qaeda militants in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. As of now, only four other countries – Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria – figure on the State Department classification as “state sponsors of terrorism”. Robert Lamb, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told Bloomberg that naming Pakistan a sponsor of terrorism “would turn it into a pariah state… and complicate a lot of aspects of the relationship, which is complicated enough already.” Ever since the latest strains between the US and Pakistan showed up, there have been angry anti-US protests in Pakistan, with some of the electronic media whipping up an anti-American frenzy. ( Watch this video , where the narrative goes: “O, Enemies, you have incited this nation…O, infidels you have incited this nation.”) Protest leaders in Pakistan have said the US will face violence if it carries out more unilateral military action inside Pakistan. Sirajul Haq, a protest leader said: “We are announcing that we will turn the tribal areas and every inch of Pakistan into a graveyard for America. Hear this from us.” Analysts fear that if the rift widens, Pakistan might cut off supply lines for US, NATO and Afghan forces in Afghanistan, which would create logistical difficulties in getting supplies into Afghanistan. They also worry that Pakistan might renege on its tacit agreement with the US under which Pakistan looks the other way when US drones attack targets within Pakistan. With inputs from agencies For more on why the US is conflicted about naming the Haqqani network a terrorist organisation, read this report in the Christian Science Monitor: “ When is a terrorist not a terrorist? America’s conundrum .” Also, do read this NPR transcript of an interview with Mike Mullen .
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